A superstitious lot (From Gazette & Herald)

A superstitious lot

FOR the last three years, John has run a Texel tup with the flock, and several Suffolk tups as well. The Texel did not have a good track record. A stunning-looking tup, his tackle left a lot to be desired. Or perhaps desire never came into it, at least not when you came to add up the sum total of Texel lambs at the end of each lambing season. I think his maximum total in a year was seven, when the Suffolks were throwing them out by the hundred. Come the year of the foot and mouth and we could not move him off the farm anyway. Last year, John kept him for sentiment, but this spring, just before lambing, the Texel tup went off to that great field in the sky, ie market.

What breed was the first lamb to poke its wet little nose into the world? A Texel cross. And the next one. And the next one. There has been a rush of Suffolk crosses since then, but the occasional Texel still keeps appearing from the business end of the ewes. John is amused and bemused. "Typical," he said "we've kept him all these years and just when he turns out to be any use to us, I get rid of him. Yet another stunning management decision."

Those lessons on 'Positive parenting for ewe' that the flock attended in the autumn, must have paid off. Not one case of lamb napping (hormone-crazy ewe about to give birth), lambicide (comfort-driven ewe seeking out a woolly mattress and selecting her offspring as first choice), Munchausen syndrome or something other by proxy (attention-seeking ewe inflicting an injury on her lamb) or even rejection (where a very special- needs ewe decides that despite having given birth to a lamb she wants nothing at all to do with it), has occurred in the flock. "It doesn't seem right" John commented, "Something will have to go wrong soon. People will think I've gone mad if I keep telling them everything is going well." They are a superstitious lot these farmers. It's just not natural when nothing is going wrong.

In terms of superstition, however, I have probably blighted the farm's chances forever this year. One of the boundaries of our garden is an old stonewall, almost totally grown over with ivy and honeysuckle. Two years ago, underneath the ivy, John tucked away an old wooden container, nailing a section across the front of the box and tacking it to the wall. Nothing nested in there for the last two years. We thought it must be in the wrong place and planned to move it this year. Looking for an emergency place to hide a house key, however, I came upon the box, ideal for the spare key if made water-tight in an old sweetie tin. No need to move the box, it was the perfect secret hideaway.

Because we needed to give a spare house key to a friend several weeks ago, I went into the garden to fetch the key, sweeping out the detritus of old leaves and moss that had gathered in the box over winter. Or so I thought.

"You've really upset that robin," John commented when he came in for lunch. "She's been working away all morning to put those dry leaves and moss back into her nest box." It was true. The robin had flown down and gathered up all the 'rubbish' I'd thrown away and re-made her nest. It's bad luck to disturb a robin's nest, so if anything does go wrong with the sheep now, you know whose fault it will be, don't you?

Updated: 16:07 Wednesday, April 09, 2003